We Wrote Our Own Vows

HIM

“My dearest Amanda… the way you look at me lets me know you’re about to start talking. When you walk…you walk. And when you talk…you don’t stop. I’ve been looking forward to writing our own vows since the day we got engaged. Why? Because I knew that, for once, you would take a break from said talking and it would be my chance to talk.

Some nights, when I want to make love to you, but can’t, because you’re busy talking, I look into your eyes, and I wish that I could stop you from talking long enough to tell you that I love you and your constant talking. For the record, my middle name is Zemick. I’ve just never had a chance to tell you before today. On account of all the talking.

It was your talking that first attracted me to you… your primal fear of silence has filled my ears with the music of your words, and your words have filled my eyes with salty tears of appreciation. Your talking is the first sound I hear when I wake up in the morning and the last noise I hear as I fall into a coma-like sleep every evening.

“When I answer my phone I want to hear your talking, and when I open the door I want you to be there talking to me as well. If there were some way to broadcast you over television I would want to have you talking to me there also. Ditto on my portable devices. My darling, I haven’t won an argument with you yet, and with any luck… I’ll never win one for the rest of my life.

“You’ve been talking to me for the past five years, and during that time I’ve become accustomed to your talking, and even listened to parts of it, and I want you to know that on this, our wedding day, I hope you never stop talking at me. I hope for years to come you will talk to me through childbirth, and Christmases, and anniversaries, and during Jerry Lewis Telethons, and the eventual auditing of our joint tax returns. Just keep talking and I will make all the magic happen.”

HER

"One day God made a puppy, and opened a window, and a bird came down from heaven, and melted the puppy with Cupid’s burning arrow, because I forgot to say earlier that the puppy was frozen in a block of ice, but that was okay because a dove flew over the puppy in the garden where a single red rose was growing, and a little girl picked that rose, and a rainbow appeared. Did I mention that little girl was also an angel? She was.

Two weeks later I met my beloved Remy in the spatula section of Bed, Bath & Beyond. He was buying a spatula. That was the day the stream began to flow, the warm stream of our love, and it mixed with the river of Jesus in the ocean of America, and so now all our waters is mingled, and we are ankle-deep in liquid love.

Remy, you are my moon, my sun, my Jupiter and my Alderaan. You are the gravity that keeps me from floating senselessly into the atmosphere, high on fizzy-lifting drinks, clutching at street signs and telephone poles so that I do not leave Earth’s orbit and burn to a crisp in the deadly radiation of the Van Allen belt. You are my rocket ship of goodness, and when we find ourselves under fire from attacking alien cruisers we get into the escape pod together and press the button… the button that makes it go whooooosh!!!

The love you give goes flowing out of me and back into you, passing through our friends and family members, surging through our acquaintances and co-workers. The love in my heart swells to twice the size of my devotion every time you re-dedicate yourself to share in the thunderstorm of my eternity. Now I’m feeling partly cloudy with a 30% chance of showers and I require immediate medical attention.